The culture war, or perhaps we should call it the last leg of the Civil War, just got uglier. Fox News host Tucker Carlson lashed out at Senator Tammy Duckworth for supporting changing the names of military bases named after Confederates. Duckworth also advocates a “national dialogue” on George Washington’s statues. For this, Carlson opined that Duckworth is a “deeply silly and unimpressive person” (my God, look who’s talking) and part of a group of “people [who] hate America.”
Duckworth is a hero, maimed while serving her country in a war zone. Carlson never served his country for a minute in the military and he dis-serves it now. He’s a propagandist, one who substitutes emotional triggers for rational argument. After college Carlson applied for work at the CIA and after they rejected him, he decided to become a talking head on television. Now he’s got the hubris to accuse the likes of Tammy Duckworth of hating America. Carlson doesn’t speak for America, he speaks for Amerikkka and that’s the problem. The Hill:
“You’re not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military,” Carlson said. “Most people just ignore her. But when Duckworth does speak in public, you’re reminded what a deeply silly and unimpressive person she is.”
“It’s long been considered out of bounds to question a person’s patriotism. It’s a very strong charge, and we try not ever to make it. But in the face of all of this, the conclusion can’t be avoided. These people actually hate America. There’s no longer a question about that,” Carlson claimed.
Conservative writer and Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes called the shot. Carlson is taking fire from all shades of the political spectrum for this abomination.
One hopes Tucker still has the capacity to blush. https://t.co/sWrcqBjc58
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) July 7, 2020
If ability to feel shame is a prerequisite, he probably doesn't.
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) July 7, 2020
Trump-centric Fox News and the GOP follow the lead of America’s most pro-Russian president. Russian state media have aired so many of Tucker Carlson’s comments that the host of Russia’s state TV lovingly described Carlson as “practically our co-host.” https://t.co/UCB0msloRd
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 5, 2020
Evidently the bridge too far for Carlson and those who “think” like him is the suggestion about George Washington. It should be noted that Duckworth suggested a dialogue. That’s all she’s on record saying. She isn’t advocating destruction of Washington’s statues, merely discussion. But make no mistake, this is a firestorm. This is one of those moments which has hit a nerve. It’s ugly now, it will get uglier still. And also bear in mind that the culture war is Trump’s reelection platform, kit and kaboodle. He’s got nothing else, so sowing discord and division is it.
Maybe Carlson will lose more advertisers. This is pure poison being spewed on the airwaves nightly. This is the Pandora’s box that Trump’s ascension opened and I don’t know if it will ever get shut. The level of civil discourse in this country has plummeted way below anything I would have ever thought possible. Fox News used to be mostly ridiculous, with banner headlines about “President Poupon” the day that Obama put Dijon mustard on a burger. If only we could return to that. The only thing I feel comfortable saying, because it is true with respect to all things Trumpian, is that it will get worse still. That’s the nature of this beast.
I am so goddamned furious over this I can’t put it into words. If I posted some of what’s going through my mind of what would ensue if sometime today I were to encounter the worthless piece of shit known as Tucker Carlson you’d have to ban me from this site. For those who know me and some of my background use your imagination. Then multiply it by infinity…
Ice the rage, Denis, and point it in the direction of how you want November to go. It’s the only thing it’s good for at this point.
I’ve said in the past I’ve been filled up with hate in the aftermath of November 2016. I know how corrosive hate is. It can consume a person and leave irreparable damage. I’ve meant it when I said I don’t care. Hatred of Donald Trump, as well as his enablers is what has been fueling me and despite instances where it overwhelms me I’ve fought to control and focus it on one goal. Destroying Trump and other Republicans at the polls this November. Just as you correctly say I should do.
I’m long past caring about the damage to my body and spirit the hatred inside me is doing. Hell, I know I will (because my scrawl of a signature on an absentee ballot would be challenged) have to risk getting Covid-19 (I have health issues that create extra hazards) by voting in person to ensure my vote is cast and counted. Working to get others to vote the correct way isn’t enough. I will goddamned well cast MY vote and if it ultimately winds up with me getting sick and dying it will be worth it. My ass has been on the line before so I’m not talking out of it when I say that.
Hate is what mostly fuels me. I’m afraid to rely on hope. I just want to do all the right things and make it to the time when I can cast my vote, and hopefully bear witness to an overwhelming rejection of what’s taken place since November 2016. If current or new health problems don’t get me, then any extra time on this earth seeing meaningful progress made on sewing up the gaping wounds that have been inflicted on our country and the free world will be a bonus.
But first things first. Avoid getting sick so I can vote, and also get others to do so. Hate is my fuel, but I realize that when interacting with others in person and especially strangers (and I do strike up conversations with strangers sometimes while out at the store or other errands that force me out of my apartment) I work hard to cloak it.
The best revenge against an enemy is to outlast him. So I truly hope, Denis, when this ugly chapter is done, you do something about the hate. Because if it makes you check out before Trump does, I would count that as no victory. So please…try to be good to yourself.
I take my myriad of medications and do all the things my doctors tell me to do. I also try to follow the advice of experts who know WTF they are talking about when it comes to protecting myself from Covid-19. Like I said I want to live to both cast my vote to cast out Trump and others and just as importantly convince others to do so.
That’s my priority. Seeing that worthless asshole humiliated by losing. And as many of his enablers elected and appointed tossed out on their asses as well.
If fortune smiles on all that, at that point I can turn my attention to what I can do to stay as healthy as possible to help with damage control. There is after all so much that has been destroyed. Rebuilding what can be rebuilt (and not all of it can) will be a multi-generation thing but we can get it in motion, and with luck and a shitload of hard work put in better guardrails to keep things on track.
Denis, come to Montreal. Let me introduce you to our Prime Minister this coming December at the National Menorah Lighting in Parliament. It’s quite the event. The leaders of all 4 major Canadian parties share the dais and all talk and shake hands and take their pictures together. No hatred, yelling, screaming, or evil facetiousness. None of that. Just four people with different solutions to the same problems hanging out and enjoying each others’ company, and of course the hundreds of (mostly-Jewish) people who come out for the event every year. Of course the most joyous person there each year is our Prime Minister, who is an absolutely wonderful human being and a true joy to be with in public. Our synagogue hired a new rabbi (from Oregon) three years ago and I took him to the event and he asked Justin for some selfies and Justin was like “of course!” (with his typical beaming smile) and put his arm around Boris and I took a bunch of pictures with them and as Justin turned around to the next selfie he said to Rabbi Boris “hey, thanks for coming to our National Chunnukah event”.
Boris was in shock. He said to me after “How can we share a 5,000 mile long border and my country produce “the Republican Party” and your country produce 4 national leaders who all genuinely like and respect each other and everyone treats each other kindly and with such goodness. HOW?”
And he alluded to it again this past Saturday in Zoom-Synagogue when he talked about how well Canada worked as a country in that we have had a little less than 110,000 infections in TOTAL since the start of the pandemic while his home country has had that many just in the previous two days while “his” president had spent the previous evening trying to ensure that South Dakota ALONE could soon beat all of Canada for total number of infections… and on and on about Canada’s “political functionality”. My point being Denis, you need some space from that colossal cluster$^%k that is the current iteration of the USA. It is clearlty driving you insane. Bonkers. And that my friend, is, and I promise you this, so NOT GOOD for your health. You need to get away and see that the entire world because almost NONE of it is as utterly disfunctional as the USA. I know you’re trying but you listen too closely to the bubble chamber that is your media. ALL of them, even MSNBC who should know better, keep telling you how the USA is the greatest country in the world and everyone on the planet wishes to live there (BTW, one trip to Toronto trying to buy any real estate at all, and you will discover how REALLY untrue that assertion is) so most people just keep listening and believing and not understanding why the most perfect country god ever created is such a total mess.
Denis, you need to get out! YOur time there is done. You’re cooked. Come see the rest of the planet. It is nowhere near as dark and evil and Murdoch-controlled (although England is close, while Aussie-land, surprisingly, isn’t) as what should, at the point, be referred to as your previous homeland. I know a great place for you: McMurdo Station. A little on the cool side most of the year (-60 to -80 on some days in July or August) but for the most part, you’ll be living with scientists and researchers who are really quite intelligent and I am certain there’s no Fox News. Or, there’s always Greenland. So much to do there, assuming doing nothing is your idea of a good time. Again, I don’t think they have Fox there. In short Denis, the world is in fact a very big and beautiful place, and the pure and blatant evil that is Fox News is nowhere to be found in most of it. That’s good for you (by the way, they tried to start up in Canada and the CRTC wouldn’t even give them a license on the grounds that they had nothing of value to offer the Canadian media landscape!! 🙂 )
Time for you to see the world my friend. And I wouldn’t go back home til the Republican Party and the Tea Party etc, etc were all dead and buried.
Tucker would deserve anything you cared to dish out to him!!
You make me think of that joke “Chuck Norris can divide by infinity!”. Denis, relax, Tucker is still only the symptom, as is Trump, in fact. The REAL question is how did you folks let Rupert Fucking Murdoch destroy your country. HE is the problem, and Lachlan is no better. They, and the dead fat lecherous bastard Ailes are the people who PERFECTED how to make themselves RICH by tearing the United States apart. You need an enemy? Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch. THEY are the problem!!!
I feel the same as you. We need to find out what sponsors Carlson has left and boycott. He has to go. Little worthless worm has no right to dis an American who gave up part of herself, for this worm and the Draft dodger-in chief.
There just are NO WORDS for the vile things these snakes are saying, who is ultimately responsible for this wide open attack on a true hero of We The People?
She should be the voice of reason on anything concerning the troops and vets … she has been through her own hell of injury and pain of recovery with an outcome the fucking idiot Tucker Carlson could not even fathom …
I swear, these people of Trumpism support and promotions should be charged with what these kinds of statements actually are, blatant attempts to promote racism, hate mongering, and a bloody conflict, where there has been an unsteady calm with all this death from Trump’s obvious non-action, zero knowledge of anything he should be doing as a REAL president … caused ALL the deaths in the US because he has done exactly nothing about his own virus …
He has nothing left, and yet he had all he needed to use and enact action at first notice of the pandemic in the US, Obama was certain to pass the system, the actors already in place, equipment, worldwide contacts with red phones of their own to lash up all the experience and findings, analysis and data, everything he COULD have used way back in November at the first intel on the China experience, NO political crap with these dedicated Health care labs, doctors, nurses, just caring, knowledgeable people with system software to load with found facts as they occurred, giving the team reactive process to get on the virus, like So. Korea, millions of people there, only lost about 1200 people to the virus, PERIOD …
What did Trump do? …. Killed everything Obama had put in place, defunded, kicked out the players needed to be in place to handle the next pandemic … with Trump’s continuous attacks on China, setting up stupid trade rules he has NO idea how any of it works … so, I’m sure the first country China is going to want to call and exchange virus data with has to be Trump’s worthless drivel WH … /s
NOW, without ANY TRUMP comment or responsible action on Putin’s Bounty on OUR TROOP’S LIVES, the A** hole Carlson making comment on ANYTHING to do with our troops, the praise for TRUMP on ANYTHING is totally sickening … Tammy Duckworth should NOT be vilified but held up as the military strength of spirit and dogged drive to survive and represent the people of these states with her knowledge and caring actions, NOT a turd in the WH, a non-president playing more golf than any former president, costing us, the taxpayers for his rants and golf games millions … we write the checks, let’s defund his golf trips AND make his election people actually reimburse we the tax payers for the actual costs of sending him anywhere on AF1 3-4 million dollars instead of the 33-40 thousand dollars that they do now, the lowest rate of a day out with a 737 jet … if he still wants to go golfing, make it a pay in advance trip, no problem for a declared billionaire …! /S
I personally take the words of a full bird colonel who lost her leg while piloting a chopper over a defective Howdy Doody clone who’d probably whine like a baby over a paper cut. Carlson is a witch with a capital B, IMO.
Tammy Duckworth is a true American hero just like the late Senator John McCain. Tucker Carlson should be fired from Fox. As bad as Fox News is, he is making it much worse.
Once again, The Trump Cultists indulge/engage in Total Projection from their black hearts and empty minds onto the REAL Americans, TRUE heroes and patriots. IT. IS. SO. PLAIN.
It isn’t even a mosquito bite any more. Barely an eye roll of relevance to Tuck Et Al.
How soon can his SWAN-SONG be? (Sorry,reaching but I had to go there)
Alternately I’d love to slap him with a frozen dinner.(am I in trouble now?)
Isn’t Tucker a friend of the Beer Head associate justice? He isn’t worth spitting on. My saliva is of more value than that scum. I don’t think Senator Duckworth should even comment on Trump trash statements.